Florida East Coast Railway

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Florida East Coast Railway No. 153 steam locomotive in the Gold Coast Railroad Museum

The Florida East Coast Railway ( FEC ) is an American Class 2 railway company in Florida that has existed since 1895 . The Florida East Coast Railway contributed significantly to the tourist and economic development of the state.

The railway company belongs to the Mexican Grupo México and was a subsidiary of Florida East Coast Industries (FECI) from 1984 to 2008 , which also includes the real estate company Flagler Development Group. The company is based in St. Augustine . As of December 31, 2004, the Florida East Coast Railway had 798 employees, 76 locomotives and 2,456 freight cars.

Route network

Current route network of the Florida East Coast Railway

The route network extends from Jacksonville with connections to CSX and Norfolk Southern , via St. Augustine, Daytona Beach , West Palm Beach to Miami . The main line is 565 km long, plus around 400 km of side tracks. From 1912 to 1935 the route extended from Miami to Key West .

history

The history of the Florida East Coast Railway is closely linked to the development of Florida. The emergence of such places as West Palm Beach or Miami can be directly traced back to the construction of the railroad.

Henry Morrison Flagler came to Florida for recreation in the winter of 1883. As a co-founder of Standard Oil , he began here to establish his reputation as one of America's most successful entrepreneurs. He had big plans for Florida. He first invested his fortune in St. Augustine. However, he needed better means of transport to transport the building materials for the hotels to be built and the guests to be expected later. Flagler's first project was the luxury hotel " Ponce de Leon ". This hotel should not just be a hotel, but should harmonize with the Spanish surroundings in St. Augustine. The "Ponce de Leon" opened in 1885 and later the "Alcazar" and the "Casa Monica Hotel" as well as other facilities were added. This led to a revitalization of the city. On December 31, 1885, Flagler acquired the small, narrow gauge Jacksonville, St. Augustine and Halifax River Railway . This acquisition marked the beginning of what is now Florida East Coast Railway . The route was re- gauged in 1890 and one of the first steel bridges in the southern United States was built in Jacksonville over the St. Johns River. In the following years he acquired other companies ( St. John's Railway , St. Augustine and Palatka Railway , St. Johns and Halifax River Railway ), so that in 1889 the railway line reached as far as Daytona Beach.

However, Flagler needed additional sources of transport in addition to supplying the hotels. South of St. Augustine was an area of ​​heavy agricultural use. Back then, the landowners tried to take advantage of any offer that increased the value of their land. Land rights were also granted for railway construction. Until then, Flagler had only bought and improved railway companies, now he became a railway builder. Flagler turned his gaze south to Lake Worth County . Palm Beach was already a larger settlement, but West Palm Beach did not exist yet, and Flagler wanted to open another exclusive resort here .

In April 1893 Flagler began purchasing land to build the Royal Poinciana Hotel, and in the summer of 1895 he began building the Palm Beach Inn and Whitehall. With these hotels, Palm Beach became the preferred winter retreat for wealthy Americans. The hotels were later combined in the FEC Hotel .

In November 1894, West Palm Beach was founded with a thousand residents, water company, town hall and school, which were jointly funded by Flagler and the county.

Exploration for the railroad construction further south towards Miami began in June 1895. After successful negotiations with Julia Tuttle and the Brickell family to acquire land in South Florida, Flagler was able to extend its railroad to Miami, a large hotel and take further measures to develop the economy. On September 7, 1895, the existing railroad was renamed the Florida East Coast Railway . On April 15, 1896, the line to Miami was completed. In July 1896, three months after the first train arrived, Miami was founded with a population of 502. Flagler financed water works, sewer systems, an electric power station, and road construction to stimulate South Florida's economy. The Royal Palm Hotel opened for the 1897 season to attract wealthy people to the new city.

Key West Extension

Bridge at Bahia Honda

In 1893 the railroad's concession was changed to allow for a possible extension of the railroad to Biscayne Bay and then across the Florida Keys to Key West . Until the 1950s there was a high volume of traffic between the USA and Cuba , and Key West was closer to the Panama Canal than any other port in the USA. Construction began in 1904 south of Homestead . The construction of the route was extremely difficult. On the first part to Key Largo , many swamps had to be crossed. Later the construction work was hampered by swarms of mosquitoes. But the storms that occurred in the Caribbean also affected the construction work. A hurricane in September 1906 destroyed the Long Key Viaduct that had been started, killing more than 100 workers. In 1907 this bridge, more than three kilometers long, was opened and connected to Knights Key. Storm damage occurred again in 1909 and 1910. On January 22, 1912, when Henry Flagler was 82 years old, the first train ran to Key West. Flagler's "Empire" was ready. He created an American Riviera and his railroad ran to the southernmost city in the United States. This connection to Key West existed for 23 years. On September 2, 1935, a cyclone, the Labor Day hurricane , washed away parts of the railroad embankment and the tracks over a length of 65 kilometers, and there was also the Islamorada railway accident . Much of the route was in ruins. The estimated $ 12 million recovery cost was too high. It was decided not to rebuild the line as it was never as profitable as its planner, who died in 1913, had expected. US Highway 1 ( Overseas Highway ) was later led over the remaining bridges .

Development after 1920

Apart from the route to Key West, the transport volume on the remainder of the route was excellent. The railroad made growing fruit and vegetables in Florida profitable. The faster transport allowed the products to be delivered in better quality to customers in the northern and midwestern United States. In 1925, the old section from Bunnell via East Palatka to St. Augustine was replaced by a new section directly along the coast. From December 1925 to July 1926, the entire route from Miami in the south to Jacksonville in the north was expanded to double-track in sections. But in 1926 this good economic situation ended and the company had to file for bankruptcy. For the next 30 years, the FEC was under administration for bankruptcy. The Second World War brought only a brief upswing. After the war, several railway companies ( Atlantic Coast Line Railroad , Seaboard Air Line Railroad and Southern Railway ) tried to take over the FEC. However, this request was not approved by the State of Florida or by society itself. On January 1, 1961, the company was taken over by the St. Joe Paper Company ( Alfred I. duPont Testamentary Trust ) with the approval of the ICC , the State of Florida and the trade unions.

The FEC was a very inefficient railway company at that time. It took three teams of five to haul a train all the way from Miami to Jacksonville. In March 1962, the US trade unions demanded a disproportionate wage increase and threatened a nationwide strike . A committee set up by President Kennedy eventually negotiated a small increase. 192 of the 193 Class 1 companies agreed to the compromise, only the FEC did not. The company had made losses in 28 of the past 30 years, and the embargo on Cuba added further losses of $ 4 million annually. On January 23, 1963, the railroad employees shut down rail traffic in the hope of encouraging management to give in. But the managers decided differently. They used office workers for rail traffic, and on February 3, 1963, the first train started rolling again. In the period that followed, workers from all over the world came and signed with the FEC. In the summer of 1964, however, began to sabotage rail traffic. After a few minor actions, trains began to be blown up. A total of eight such attacks were counted. President Johnson learned of the matter while visiting Florida while addressing the AFL-CIO and called on the FBI . After several arrests, the acts of sabotage stopped. In the following period, the old existing work regulations were replaced. The service of the train staff was no longer limited to 100 miles a day, but was changed to eight hours of work, there was no longer any separation between line and station service, and the limitation of the start of work to shunting locomotives was also eliminated. A union of its own was formed in the 1970s, and an agreement was also signed with the United Transportation Union on March 1, 1995 .

Passenger traffic ceased on July 31, 1968. In order to further expand the offer, haulage rights agreements have been concluded with Norfolk Southern for container transport from the ports in Jacksonville, Fort Pierce , Fort Lauderdale and Miami to Atlanta , Chicago , New York / New Jersey and Baltimore . On March 2, 1998, the South Central Florida Express (SCFE) was handed over the Fort Pierce - Lake Harbor route with a long-term trackage rights agreement .

In 1984 FEC became a subsidiary of Florida East Coast Industries (FECI) holding, which was founded in 1983 . % - - In 1999, the 54 was the proportion in the meantime in St. Joe Company renamed former St. Joe Paper Company under a stock exchange sold to the shareholders of St. Joe Company. From that point on, the company was again an independent company. In May 2007, the investment company Fortress Investment Group , which had previously taken over the shortline operator RailAmerica , acquired FECI. A merger of these two railway companies did not take place, RailAmerica was later sold to Genesee and Wyoming .

Fortress spun off the railway company from FECI in 2008 and founded the Florida East Coast Holdings Corporation as a holding company in 2011 . However, the FECI retained the right to be able to offer passenger services on the tracks of the Florida East Coast Railway. In 2016, the rail company All Aboard Florida , a subsidiary of FECI, began operating between Miami and West Palm Beach under the brand name "Brightline".

In July 2017, the Mexican company Grupo México Transportes acquired the Florida East Coast Railway for two billion dollars.

Corporate management

President

Chairman of the Board

  • 1895 - May 20, 1913: Henry M. Flagler
  • March 22, 1924 - December 13, 1925 William H. Beardsley
  • 1926–1931: William R. Kenan Jr.
  • January 1, 1961–1981: Edward Ball
  • 1999 - March 28, 2005: Robert W. Anestis
  • March 28, 2005 - October 29, 2007: Adolfo Henriques
  • October 29, 2007 - 2010: John E. Giles
  • 2010-2017: Wesley R. Edens

literature

  • Florida East Coast Industries: Annual Reports 1999-2004
  • Jeffrey A. Harwell: Florida East Coast - survivor in the sun . In: Trains 07/1996. Kalmbach Publishing Co., Waukesha, WI, pp. 34-43, ISSN  0041-0934
  • George H. Drury: The Historical Guide to North American Railroads. 2nd ed. Kalmbach Publishing Co., Waukesha, WI 2000, ISBN 0-89024-356-5

Web links

Commons : Florida East Coast Railway  - Collection of Images, Videos, and Audio Files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Gregg Turner: A Short History of Florida Railroads. Arcadia Publishing , Mount Pleasant 2014, ISBN 978-1-439642-54-2
  2. ↑ Mischa Wanek-Libman, Engineering Editor: Grupo México completes FEC acquisition . ( railwayage.com [accessed July 11, 2017]).
  3. ↑ 22 Mar 1934, Page 4 - The Palm Beach Post at Newspapers.com. Retrieved March 11, 2019 .
  4. ↑ 21 Feb 1941, 50 - The Evening Sun at Newspapers.com. Retrieved March 11, 2019 .
  5. ^ 1 Sep 1931, Page 1 - St. Louis Post-Dispatch at Newspapers.com. Retrieved March 11, 2019 .
  6. ^ Seth Bramson: Speedway to Sunshine: The Story of the Florida East Coast Railway . Boston Mills Press, 2003, ISBN 978-1-55046-358-3 ( google.de [accessed March 11, 2019]).
  7. ^ 1923 Long Branch Born March 3, Nationality American: Raymond W. Wyckoff. Retrieved March 11, 2019 .
  8. ^ Seth Bramson: Speedway to Sunshine: The Story of the Florida East Coast Railway . Boston Mills Press, 2003, ISBN 978-1-55046-358-3 ( google.de [accessed March 11, 2019]).
  9. ^ President, CEO John Giles and Vice President David J. Rohal Join Florida East Coast Railway. November 8, 2007, accessed March 11, 2019 .
  10. ^ President, CEO John Giles and Vice President David J. Rohal Join Florida East Coast Railway. November 8, 2007, accessed March 11, 2019 .